Political Spirituality for a Century of Water Wars

James W. Perkinson is a long-time activist/educator/poet from inner city Detroit, teaching as Professor of Social Ethics at the Ecumenical Theological Seminary and lecturing in Intercultural Communication Studies at the University of Oakland (Michigan).

This book offers resources for re-imagining the biblical vision of water for a time quickly emerging as "the century of water wars." It takes its urgency from the author's 5-year activist engagement with a grass-roots-led social movement, pushing back on Detroit water shutoffs as global climate crises intensify.  Concerned with both white supremacist "biopolitics" and continuing settler colonial reliance on the Doctrine of Christian Discovery, and beholden to an interreligious methodology of "crossing over and coming back," the text creatively re-reads the biblical tradition under tutelage to the mythologies and practices of various indigenous cultures (Algonquian/Huron, Haitian/Vodouisant, and Celtic/Norman) whose embrace of water is animate and spiritual as well as political and communal. Not enough, today, merely to engage the political battle over water rights, however; indigenous wisdom and biblical prophecy alike insist that recovery of water spirituality is central to a sustainable future.  

Introduction: Politics and Spirit in the Emerging Water War: Crossing Over and Coming Back

Chapter 1 Water Monopoly at the Strait: White Supremacy and Biopower

Chapter 2 Water Struggle along the Border: Settler Colonialism and Christian Dominion

Chapter 3 Water Story around the Bend: The Windigo Monster and the Nanabozho Trickster

Chapter 4 Water Spirituality beyond the Basin: Detroit Dwarf, Celt Hound, Afro-Orisha

Chapter 5 Water Combat on the Coast: Canaanite Storm-Gods and Israelite Wind-Spirits

Chapter 6 Water Divination around the Jordan: The Ford-Fight of Jacob and the Water-Test of Jesus

Chapter 8 Water Wars on a Living Planet: The Globe and the Strait